At Portsmouth the people united in the following declaration: "We do here solemnly, in the presence of Jehovah, incorporate ourselves into a body politic, and as He shall help will submit our persons, lives, and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of His, given us in His holy words of truth, to be guided and judged thereby." The freemen conducted public affairs in town meeting, with a secretary, a clerk, and a chief magistrate. Newport was similarly organized; but when Newport and Portsmouth reunited, a more complex government was instituted. A General Court was then established, in which sat the governor, the deputy-governor, and four assistants,--one town choosing the governor and two of the assistants, and the other the deputy-governor and the remaining assistants; the freemen composed the body of the court, and settled even the most trivial cases. In 1641 it was declared that "it is in the power of the body of the freemen orderly assembled, or the part of them, to make and constitute just laws by which they shall be regulated, and to depute from among themselves such ministers as shall see them faithfully executed between man and man." At the same session an order was adopted "that none be accounted a delinquent for doctrine, provided it be not directly repugnant to the government or laws established." Sidenote: An asylum for sectaries. By the other colonies Providence and Rhode Island were deemed hot-beds of anarchy. Persons holding all manner of Protestant theological notions flocked thither in considerable numbers, and it is true that for many years there were hot contentions between them, often to the disturbance of public order. Despite these years of bickerings, Providence and Rhode Island prospered. Sidenote: Establishment of Providence Plantations. Through the exertions of Roger Williams, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, with a new town called Warwick were united under one charter (1644), as the colony of Providence Plantations. This liberal document, issued by the Parliamentary Committee on the Colonies, gave to the inhabitants along Narragansett Bay authority to rule themselves "by such form of civil government as by the voluntary consent of all or the greatest part of them shall be found most serviceable to their estate and condition." Larger power could not have been wished for. By a curious provision, adopted in 1647, a law had to be proposed at the General Court; it was then sent round to the towns for the freemen to pass upon it, thus giving the voters a voice in the conduct of affairs, without the necessity of attending court. A majority of freemen in any one town could defeat the measure. A code of laws resembling the common laws of England, and with few references to biblical precedents, passed safely through the ordeal in 1647; one important section provided that "all men may walk as their conscience persuades them."